


From a Pistol to a Kiss

by Pyreite



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Execution, F/M, Guns, Healing, Help, Implied/Referenced Torture, Inspiration, Lost Love, Love, Love/Hate, Mass Effect Kink Meme, Pathfinding, Recovery, Romance, future happiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 22:52:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11114562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyreite/pseuds/Pyreite
Summary: Ryder visits Kadara to check on Reyes only to find his prisoner has escaped.  Kaetus isn't happy to see her again and wants revenge for Sloane.





	From a Pistol to a Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Mass Effect Kink Fill: F!Ryder/Kaetus -    
>  _So after choosing not to save Sloane, you can find Kaetus in the holding cells in Kadara, where he's pretty much waiting to be killed. Not only that but he's pretty pissed at Ryder for not saving Sloane. (And he totally gives off an "Sloane may have been more than my boss" vibe)_
> 
> _I am dying to see something with Kaetus, where Ryder maybe doesn't let Reyes kill him off, saving his life even though Kaetus swears he's going to kill Ryder if Reyes doesn't kill him._
> 
> _Definitely an enemies to lovers kink._
> 
> _I would fill this for myself but my writing ability is pretty non existent. D':_

Ryder remembered the last words he said to her from behind bars. His voice had shaken with fury as he’d accused her of being dishonourable. Ryder still believed she’d done the right thing. Reyes was a business man, greedy as hell but manageable. Sloane had been a loose cannon ready to explode.

Ryder preferred the lesser evil, though she wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet between Reyes’s eyes.

She didn’t like liars even if they were useful. She’d play nice with Reyes, provided he held up on his end of the deal. He could be the King in Kadara as long as he continued protecting the Initiative outpost. Her outpost.

Ryder wasn’t Ditaeon’s mayor, but she still considered its people her own.

The enigmatic Christmas Tate included.

So the one day she visited Kadara Port to check on Reyes, to make sure he was being a good boy. Ryder found the barrel of a pistol aimed at her temple. She was unimpressed when she caught sight of her executioner. He was breathing hard, bleeding from a chest wound, and looked like hell warmed over.

“Time to die you traitorous, bitch”.

Ryder arched her brows and stared into his angry brown eyes. She knew those slate-grey plates and sky-blue markings. Only one turian in all Kadara wore that dented silver armour. The upturned W on his chest, a symbol of the Outcasts, had been burned out. The crooked scorch marks were likely from an omniblade.

“Kaetus”, said Ryder. “You look like shit”.

Bloody blue mandibles clacked against his chin. He was still handsome, like a bird of prey, but he was scarred too. Ryder saw more burns etched into the plates of his face. His cheeks, chin, and mandibles were marred with more ugly scorch marks. Some wounds were old and recent, judging from the puckered half-healed plates.

“Do you see the Charlatan’s handiwork?” accused Kaetus. “Torture seems to be the preferred MO”.

Ryder sniffed. “And you have a gun pointed at my head. Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”

“Bitch”.

“I thought you were trying to kill me. All I hear are insults”.

Kaetus gaped at her. He couldn’t believe how calm she was. No one, in his experience as Sloane’s flunky, had ever been so unflappable. Ryder didn’t blink an eye when he pressed the tip of the barrel hard into her skin. She looked back at him, with that same bored disdain, as if he wasn’t frightening enough to be a real threat.

“You’re not afraid”.

Ryder snorted.

“I’ve died twice already. You ride that roller-coaster a few times. You learn not to fear what’s at the end. If you pull that trigger. I might actually find a measure of peace in the shit-show that’s my life”.

She exhaled a slow breath. “You’d be doing me a favour”.

Kaetus contemplated what she’d said. He was more bewildered than angry. He had expected panic, even fear, not this easy acceptance. Ryder hadn’t flinched despite having a pistol aimed at her skull. Her composure was unexpected, even frightening.

“No! This isn’t right! You’re supposed to be afraid!”

“I’m not”, said Ryder. “Dying is easy. It’s the living that’s hard”.

Kaetus lowered the pistol. He was gawking at her, eyes wide with incredulity, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard. Ryder frowned when he inhaled a shaky breath. His mandibles fluttered against his chin like the wings of a butterfly. He was nervous, agitated, but she hadn’t realised he was grieving too.

Sloane had been more than his boss.

She’d been his lover.

Ryder felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise at the sound. A high flanging keen whistled between Kaetus’s jagged teeth. His mandibles clacked against his chin in distress. The pistol fell from his nerveless fingers. It clattered to the ground as the Charlatan’s goon-squad arrived to apprehend him.

Ryder ignored them in favour of the injured turian shaking like a leaf. He couldn’t take his eyes off her as he sucked in several shallow breaths. She heard that same flanging cry again. Kaetus touched her cheek with shaking fingers. He dug his claws in hard enough for her to feel the prickling discomfort, but not to pierce her skin.

He didn’t seem to care about the guards, their guns, or the laser-sight across the back of his skull. He only had eyes for one person. His gaze was intense as he dragged a taloned thumb across Ryder’s chin. The softness of her skin seemed to fascinate him. His thumb grazed her lower-lip as he exposed her flat mammalian teeth.

Ryder was wary when he spoke to her.

“She used to say that too”.

Ryder knew who he meant. Sloane had been ready for everything, even death. Ryder remembered the glint off the sniper’s scope. Sloane shouldn’t have believed she’d be honourable enough to save her life. She should’ve known better than to trust that Reyes Vidal would play by the rules.

“Dying is easy”, repeated Kaetus. “But living is hard. So fucking hard”.

He pressed the tip of his talon between Ryder’s teeth. His flanging cry turned into a wanton hiss when she complied. Her mouth opened a tantalising inch and Kaetus slipped the pad of his thumb inside. He groaned when he felt the warm wet heat of her tongue. His mandibles trembled, his eyes rolled, and he took a deep fortifying breath.

“You let the Charlatan take her away from me”.

Ryder watched him in silence as his thumb slid from her mouth. His talon was slick with her saliva. He was panting when he addressed Ryder. He had come to a decision that would change her life and his own. Forever.

“As far as I’m concerned”, he told her. “You owe me”.

“Is that so?”

“You’re damned right it is”, spat Kaetus. “Sloane meant the world to me. Now she’s dead. I don’t care if the Charlatan killed her. You let that bastard do it, Ryder”.

“I did and I’d do it again”, she assured him. “I saw what she was doing in Kadara, Kaetus. Charging people protection fees. Exiling them into the badlands when they couldn’t pay-up. Beating people to death in the streets”.

“She had to do something!”

Ryder’s mouth thinned and her eyes were hard. “Then she should have done better. People aren’t pawns on a fucking chessboard. And I’m not a bigot like Tann. I could have helped her, helped you, and your people. But she wanted an enemy instead of a friend”.

Kaetus snorted. “And you would’ve helped us? Do you expect me to believe that bullshit?”

“You can believe what you want. It doesn’t change who I am. Or what I do”.

He swallowed his bruised pride. He knew exactly what she meant. It was the sole reason Sloane had turned against Tann and the Initiative. The Nexus had left them without a light to guide them through the darkness of their despair. They’d needed the very thing Ryder was.

A Pathfinder to steer them home.

“You find a path through the storm”.

Ryder nodded. “And sometimes I make the path by stepping into the unknown. I guide those that follow me down its winding way. I take the risk, so they don’t have too. And I guard them, Kaetus, with all the strength that’s in me”.

“No matter how hard it is?”

She smiled. “No matter how hard it is”.

Kaetus heaved a sigh of relief. “I’m so tired, Ryder”.

“I know”.

“I’m not going back to that fucking cell”.

Ryder considered him for a moment. She knew he was serious when he clenched his jagged teeth. This turian had come to collect on a debt he thought she owed. Ryder suspected her life had been the initial cost, but something had changed. Kaetus didn’t want her to die.

The pistol he’d stolen was lying in the dust at his feet. The Charlatan’s guards surrounded them. It made for an easy kill at point-blank range. Ryder saw the familiar glint of a sniper’s scope in the distance. She knew she had a choice to make or Kaetus would have his brains splattered.

He’d die the same way Sloane did.

“You don’t have too”, stated Ryder.

“What?” hissed Kaetus.

Ryder heard the shock in his voice and saw it in his face. His plated brows rose in surprise. He stared at her in wide-eyed astonishment. His mandibles went slack against his chin. Kaetus was startled when Ryder kissed the wet pad of his thumb.

“You don’t have too”, she repeated. “If dying is easy and living is hard. I’ll help you find a way through the darkness. I’ll be your Pathfinder, Kaetus. If you let me”.

He was startled by the offer.

“You want to help me”.

Ryder nodded. “The Charlatan’s goons will kill you here and now. I’m offering you another path. It’s up to you to follow me down it. I can only show you the way”.

“Am I supposed to believe that you won’t kill me too?” snapped Kaetus.

“If you die”, she told him. “How will I make amends?”

Ryder was ready when he took a step towards her.

“I know a way you can start paying me back”.

“Oh?”

“Yeah”, said Kaetus. “You can start by getting me out of this hellhole. Alive”.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. You’ve got a deal”.

Ryder gasped when his mouth replaced his thumb. A thick blue tongue slid between her lips. His mandibles tickled her chin as he kissed her. She moaned when a taloned hand sank into her hair. Kaetus was as rough as he was desperate when he slid an arm around her waist.

He yanked her forward. She grunted when the armoured shell of his breastplate ground into her chest. Kaetus nipped her lower-lip when she moaned. A heady fog filled his head. It had been months since he’d lain with Sloane.

Ryder would never replace her, but she could help him start a new life.

_**Six Years Later** _

“Hey”, called Ryder. “Darling. Are you all right?”

Kaetus nodded when she kissed his shoulder. He groaned when she pressed herself into the curve of his spine. He felt her breasts, soft and bare, moulding to the shape of his plates. Spirits, she was beautiful. Sloane had been beautiful too, but she was a memory.

His Ryder was alive and well and far kinder than his former mistress.

There was passion and fire in her too, though it was gentler, and all the more consuming.

Ryder gave a good as she got. Kaetus had learned that the hard way over the years of their relationship. His mandibles fluttered when her arms slid over his shoulders. She kissed the nape of his neck and sighed as she made herself comfortable. He was all hard angles and sharp edges, but she made it work as she always did.

“How about a credit for your thoughts?”

Kaetus chuckled. “I’m fine, babe”.

She smiled against his plates. “You’re still a shitty, liar”.

“I know”.

She laughed and nuzzled his cheek. “You’re thinking about her again. Us. And about what happened on Kadara”.

Kaetus sighed. “Damn it. How do you always know?”

“I’m your bondmate”, said Ryder. “I know a few things. And you’re always broody first thing in the morning too. You only mellow out after a few kisses, cuddles, and a couple rounds of sex. We’ve got the last part covered, but I still need to make good on the first two”.

“I suppose we’d best make a start then”, teased Kaetus.

“Sounds good to me”, seconded Ryder.

He reached for the soft humans hands nestled inside the bony ring of his cowl. He threaded his fingers through hers. Ryder was right. He was broody first thing in the morning when he awoke to find her beside him. He could never quite believe his good fortune.

She was a dream, yet Ryder was always there, with a kiss and a cuddle to prove him wrong.

She wasn’t a delusion.

She was real and his and content to help him live this surreal new life.

“I know I brood”, he told her. “I’m sorry, but sometimes I can’t help it”.

“I know, baby. And it’s all right. I’m here. I’m your Pathfinder. And I’ll guide you out of the darkness and into the light”.

Ryder pressed her lips together and hummed a soft sweet tune. She rocked him slowly, back and forth, until the fear seeped away. It was an old turian melody, a lullaby his mother used to sing to him. Kaetus remembered teaching it to her after they’d adopted their first child. A baby turian, an orphan, with nowhere to go and no one to love him.

Kaetus sang the words Ryder couldn’t. Palvenus had an odd flanging accent that human throats couldn’t produce. And for the first time he was content to bask in the warmth she exuded like the rays of Meridian’s rising sun. Their kids wouldn’t be up for a few more hours. They had time to enjoy being together.

To be a family.

“I love you”, he whispered.

Ryder smiled. “I love you too”.


End file.
